Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
By signing up, you certify that you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.

The Cultural War Against Christians

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer was right to veto SB1062, which would have amended the Arizona Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The bill, per most interpretations I've read, would have given broad discretion to business owners, because of their religious convictions, to refuse to do business with anyone associated with homosexual lifestyles.

Religious freedom is about protection of your right to practice your religion and not being forced to violate it.

However, the right to religious freedom does not mean the right to write-off and marginalize into non-existence a whole class of citizens whom you don't like or agree with.

Under Jim Crow, the problem whites had with blacks was not what blacks thought or did, but that they existed. These laws were designed to relegate one class of citizens to separate and unequal status, simply because of who they were.

Such actions have nothing to do with freedom and everything to do with bigotry and racism.

But, unfortunately, the failure of this poorly conceived Arizona bill will be misinterpreted. Some will incorrectly claim that this means it is not a violation of religious freedom to force a business owner to provide a product or service for activity that is against his or her religious convictions. That is incorrect.

Would anyone question the refusal of a black vendor to sells sheets to the local Ku Klux Klan chapter? Or a Jewish merchant refusing to sell the poster board for a Neo-Nazi rally? Or refusal of a Christian video service to make a pornographic film?

So why is it not perfectly clear that the religious freedom of a Christian merchant is violated if that merchant is forced to bake a cake or prepare a flower arrangement for a same-sex marriage which is not only as personally repugnant to that vendor as any in the cases above, but is also a clear and literal violation of the scripture that defines the faith of these individuals?

And why is it that same-sex couples have such a hard time finding bakers and florists that are not offended by their wedding? Why do they wind up with such regularity trying to buy from Christian vendors?

The reality is that the “gay rights” crusade is not about a struggle for justice but rather it is a cultural war.

Homosexual activists understand the ongoing erosion of traditional values as a pillar of our society and use this opportunity to push Christian reality, once and for all, into the closet and to lock the door.

The cultural script has been re-written such that Christians have been put in a position of either rejecting the precepts and prohibitions of their religion, or being faithful to them and being branded as against “equality.”

The problem, of course, is not what people do in private. The issue is that it all has been dragged into the public square because, again, this is a cultural war.

The battlefront is the core contradiction of legitimization of homosexual behavior that scripture clearly prohibits and then moving on to redefine marriage.

Christians have been put in the untenable position that being true to their faith means, by the new standards set in our society, being labeled a bigot and then being exposed to being put out of business.

Let's keep in mind that the idea of religious freedom only means something as long as religion means something.

It is critical that Christians draw the line and continue the struggle and not allow religion or religious freedom to be compromised. Individuals or businesses forced to supply goods or services for activities against the precepts of their faith must refuse and call forth their protection under the first amendment of the US constitution.

The last paragraph in this article should be posted on every bill board in the nation. IMO we should have a right to not violate our conscious, and should not be made to by anyone. IMO we are being made to participate in sin and, when we do this, we may as well be the one doing the sin.

Perhaps
all Christians business owners should have all potential buyers fill in
this application before allowing them to shop because there are MANY
sins that people commit that go against religious beliefs:

Possible Mortal Sins Checkoff List

.

Possible Mortal Sin

1

FIRST COMMANDMENT

Serious
Matter

Sufficient
Reflection

Free
Will

1

FIRST COMMANDMENT -- I am the Lord your God. You shall not have strange gods before Me. [Exodus 20:2,3]

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Do you only worship the One True God?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you, or do you, hate God?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you give greater love to anything other than God?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you believe you were better, or smarter than God? [Deadly Sin-- PRIDE]

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put faith in Occult Ideas, or practices?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Astrology?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in New Age Philosophies?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Eastern Philosophies?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Witchcraft?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Atheism?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Agnosticism?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Sorcery?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Ouija Boards?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Seance?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Black Magic?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Voodo?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Palm Reading?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Tarot Cards?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Divination?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Hypnotism?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Superstitions?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Good Luck Charms?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Horoscopes?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you/do you put your faith in Paganism or other False Worship?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you join a Schismatic Group?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you join the Freemasons (Masons)?

[___]

[___]

[___]

1

Did you join, contribute to, or sympathize with another secret society?

This is so ridiculous. The author seems to think that all Christians hold precisely the same values, same prejudices, same opinions on social issues. And we don't. Some Christians needs to stop seeing themselves as the ultimate voice of religion.

I'm a Christian, I'm a business owner, and I also contract occasionally as a Nurse Practitioner.

If I owned a hotel, and rented rooms out would I offer it to gay men, or to two people who I knew weren't married- or perhaps to people who I knew were married to someone else? Yes. I wouldn't discriminate, as I do see it as discrimination. I'm not the judge and the jury, that is between them and God.

Now, I do not work in certain family practices as an NP, because I know they perform abortions, I will not work with teens because I don't want to prescribe birth control to them. That is my choice. If however, I were to work in those environments,and I was the only NP, I'd be stuck.

This is how I view people who state they are Christian, yet would blatantly say I will not serve you because you are gay. I think they should get a different line of business in that case, and not serve the public. How far does it go, would a baker refuse to bake a cake for an anniversary of two people living together? How far does this go? do we need to quiz everyone, as said above, to see what sins they have done? Everyone is a sinner, we too are sinners. If we don't serve sinners, there is no one left to serve, and we ourselves aren't worthy to serve anyone either.

All that said, I do agree that business owners should have the right to give service to whomever they want. If it violates their concience, or simply don't want to provide service to someone, they should have that right. I also beleive then that they shouldn't advertise to the public, and if there are people to whom they offer service, then they should publish that. Perhaps honestly they shouldn't be in business then if they are willing to put a sign out "I will not serve gays". I bet, Christ wouldn't have put that sign out. He made wine for a wedding, they were sinners.

As a Christian, we are in the world, we live in the world. I think it is a terrible witness for Christ to discriminate against "those sinners" because after all, we all are. It's throwing the stone, when we have no right to do so. It ruins our Christian witness. I personally believe that baking a cake for someone who lives a life differently than what a Christian believes is not "being complicit in their sin".

We, as Christians, have no idea whether or not they have repented for that day or any day’s sins. Which means if you do anything that helps them live or thrive and thus be able to continue on in their sin, then you are complicit in their life of sin. And if that is true, then anything Christ ever sold as a carpenter or miracle or act of kindness Jesus ever did for anybody, made him “complicit in their life of sin.”

Send me email updates about messages I've received on the site and the latest news from The CafeMom Team.
By signing up, you certify that you are female and accept the Terms of Service and have read the
Privacy Policy.